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Sep 14

11

We stand seven days from the referendum: should Scotland be an independent country? Simply speaking, no. Of course not, it’s lunacy.

Just stating the obvious, the larger the country, the more power it has. That’s in all different ways. Big obvious ways like the armed forces and economic spending power in the world spring to mind as really obvious ones.

The very question has spawned a poison that was not needed in these difficult geo-political times. The English people are wondering why Scotland will get more power in the event of a “no” and they will not get any new power in their own country. Scottish politicians can vote on legislation in England but not vice versa – the politicians are panicking and creating new problems. The Welsh will want more power, the Northern Irish will be asking questions.

Scotland has a smaller population than Greater London – in fact, less than half – yet it feels it should have a bigger influence in the whole of the UK. As a Londoner, perhaps we should have London declare independence? Perhaps my street should go it alone too? I think I could improve everyone’s life in my street. Honest. Let’s do it. My street can be a new state in the USA, I think. We’ll get the dollar, the Fed will listen to us when we want economic things changed. They’ll go for that, I’ll talk to them. Yes… that’s what we’ll do… we’ll make it up as we go along. What’s the SNP’s marketing department’s phone number? Tell them someone else escaped from the asylum.

What’s very odd is so many people wanting to come out of one union and then join another – if they are allowed (big IF). The EU is fundamentally broken and requires reform – why on earth would you want to join that anyway? If they think they have no influence now, wait until they’re in the EU properly. Wait until they have to ship all Salmond’s oil revenues down to Spain and Greek farmers. Perhaps you’ll get some olives in return.

Alex Salmond is a con man. He’s fraudulent, making things up to win support, ignoring important facts, yet because he’s a politician, it’s okay. What if he said he’d give every Scot £1m if they vote “yes” – where’s the accountability for acting with integrity in something so important?

Citing the oil revenues (which are not necessarily just automatically 100% part of Scotland’s booty): these revenues will be gone in thirty or forty years at most (they’re declining now) – what then? If the oil is given up as fully Scottish, perhaps the UK should recover some of the infrastructure investment, take some rail tracks away, ports, buildings, roads – i.e, recover our spending if we’re going to play “that’s my football” games – or is that getting silly?

Businesses will up sticks and leave Scotland. They’ve said it. Listen to them. As a foreign country, there could be all sorts of tariffs imposed on trade. Why not? It’s a FOREIGN country after a “yes” – it’s not electing this person or that person and talking about it and perhaps changing minds – it’s a FOREIGN country. As FOREIGN as Angola. What absolutely undeniably follows is an increase in unemployment, a rise in prices, reduced pensions, no home currency and therefore no ability to use economic tools to intervene with the new economy. Walk away from the UK, walk away from the central bank. Where will the Scottish government get its badly needed loans? Interest rates on loans will by punitive. Why would the UK want a currency union with a very small foreign country that will have a bad credit rating? Risk of default will be high, so bad credit rating. Scotland would have NO negotiating power. None. Nothing. Salmond has cooked up a recession and is peddling it to the people as if it was a cup cake in a car boot sale.

Assuming no border? Salmond can’t. There’s two sides to a border. It’s not an idle threat to put up a border – this is real. Particularly when the independent Scottish nation would be run by a reckless man. Scotland will be a FOREIGN country (I’ll keep saying it). The wannabee immigrants will be getting ready to go from Calais to Glasgow, to access the rest of the UK. We have to stop them. There would be border controls and restricted movement. Visas. This is REAL. Salmond wants the bits only he wants. Why does he think he’ll get it? Post “yes” vote, he thinks he has negotiating power – why would he? He would be a FOREIGN national.

Scotland does not like being governed by parties they did not vote for. Who does? Not a single person in this country voted for a Tory/Lib Dem coalition but there it is. Tell you what, let’s all run off then because you don’t like the result of the democratic process. Scotland has historically had a significant impact in returning Labour governments in the past, where the parliament would have been made up differently without their votes. When that goes (partially) the other way, Salmond’s toys come out of the pram. Let’s remember the numbers here – Scotland’s population is less than 10% of the population of the UK. It’s less than half the population of Greater London. Salmond: get 64 million beans, take out 5.3m beans and look at the size differences, then think and act with some integrity and thought for the 5.3 million people, not for yourself and your vision of being King of Scotland.

As Scotland descends into a chaos, the rest of the UK will have a blip with a load of cost to bear and the map will look strange because Scotland’s land mass looks more significant than the population numbers bear out. Salmond will hear a lot “no” answers in his negotiations with the UK as he has no leverage at all – nothing to bring to the table. But … it will be too late. The rest of the UK will have issues to solve, like borders, moving nuclear weapons, but it will settle, albeit weaker on the world stage. Scotland will settle into its role of an anonymous country – why would a nation of 5.3 million people be anything more? Congratulations.

The day itself will be important. Salmond’s nationalist and “patriotic” fervour will curry favour with people if the sun is shining and people think, “yes, okay, let’s go for it. I feel good!” The world doesn’t work in this way – the facts and the cold light of day will deliver a different outcome.

Salmond is picking and choosing bits of fantasy and confusing himself with Braveheart but he’s really Walter Mitty and people are apparently buying it. It’s easy to sell a patriotic vision. It doesn’t help that people don’t like David Cameron. It’s not Cameron Vs Salmond or Salmond Vs the Tories. It’s Sense Vs Lunacy. Salmond has a sniff of power in his fantasy vision and he’s going to lead the Scottish population into the dark ages and a place of no return before the “yes” people realise what he’s done – he’s a smiling second hand car salesman on a power trip. By then, it will be too late – it’s not another “election” in five years to try again, it’s done, over, finished. Scotland will be just another Finland (same population – Finland slightly bigger). No offence to Finland – just talking about size…!

We should ALL be proud to be members of the union. Nothing is ever perfect but it’s not broken. Try and fix it though and you break it for good. This is very real. Wake up. Vote “no”.